Fung, the 43-year-old son of Chinese immigrants who started working at the family restaurant at age 9, made himself the third major candidate to enter the 2014 race, but he moved quickly to set himself apart as he outlined his plans and goals.

“There’s only one important mission, and that’s to put people back to work,” he told supporters at Taco Inc., a maker of heating and cooling system components. “I don’t want people to keep hearing that our state is one of the worst for unemployment. We can do better, and we will do better.

“It’s going to start from day one of a Fung administration,” he said. “I will declare that our state is open for business.”

The three-term Republican mayor said his goals, if he is elected, include: a review of the state’s “entire tax system,” deadlines for regulatory reviews of business plans, a $1-million “entrepreneur venture seed fund” to help startup businesses, and tax breaks for those new businesses, which would receive tax credits for new hires and avoid the state’s corporate tax if they owe only the $500 minimum.

He also pledged to create 20,000 new jobs over four years — a goal he called realistic given the “more than one thousand” jobs created in Cranston since he took office in 2009.

“Some say I am setting the bar too high, but my administration will have a laser focus on jobs,” he said. “We have done it in Cranston; we can do it statewide.”

Fung also talked about education, saying that while he supports many ongoing initiatives to improve public schools, he would have the commissioner of education report directly to him. And he said he would freeze tuition at the state’s public colleges for four years, so families will “know what the cost of earning a diploma at our state’s schools will be.”

Turning to transportation, he said he opposes a toll on the Sakonnet River Bridge and would look for alternate ways to maintain the state roads and bridges, such as public-private partnerships and an infrastructure bank that would encourage businesses, on a case-by-case basis, to help cover some of those costs.

“The days of relying on federal grants, bonding and money from our gas tax just can’t get us to where we need to be,” he said.

His 10 a.m. announcement came a week after his friend and fellow Classical High School graduate, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, announced his run for governor. It was also one week after businessman Kenneth G. Block, founder of the state’s Moderate Party, announced he would run again for governor, this time as a Republican.

The race is only expected to get more crowded.

State General Treasurer Gina M. Raimondo, a Democrat like Taveras, is expected to announce her candidacy in the coming weeks, and Clay Pell, a Democrat and grandson of the late U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell, has said he is considering a run.

Fung took his time getting to the stage for his announcement, spending a few minutes to shake hands and give hugs. Once on stage, he greeted, among others, his parents and two sisters; his “significant other,” Barbara Ann Fenton, who is chairwoman of the Rhody Young Republicans, and former Republican Gov. Lincoln C. Almond, who was part of Fung’s exploratory committee and is expected to play an advisory role for the campaign.

Asked by reporters afterward if he can raise enough money to be a viable candidate — he had $336,554 in his campaign account as of Sept. 30, compared with $2.3 million for Raimondo, $759,150 for Taveras and $547,685 for Block — he said yes.

“I’m just getting started,” he said. But when asked if he will put his own money into his account, he said, “We’ll see.”

“I’m a small-business guy, from the past, with my family’s restaurant,” he said. “I’m not a millionaire.”

Asked if the “entrepreneur venture seed fund” he proposes would put the state back into the tenuous position of choosing winners and losers, he said no, because all new businesses could apply.

Asked who would decide which businesses get the money, he said the new economic development office that will be created under legislation passed this year.

Fung, the oldest of three children, graduated from Classical High School in Providence in 1988 and enrolled at Rhode Island College. He graduated with a degree in political science and received his law degree at Suffolk University.

He later worked as a prosecutor for the state attorney general’s office and then as a lobbyist for MetLife.

He made his first run for elected office in 2002, winning a seat on the Cranston City Council. He served two terms, and when then-Mayor Stephen P. Laffey decided not to seek a third term, Fung ran for the mayor’s office. He lost to Democrat Michael T. Napolitano by 79 votes, but two years later, in 2008, with Napolitano choosing not to run, Fung won, collecting 63 percent of the vote on a night that saw Republicans, both locally and nationally, being trounced by Democrats.

The win made him Rhode Island’s first Asian-American mayor, and he won reelection in 2010 and again in 2012.

The speculation that he would run for governor goes back years, but it was only this year that a move appeared imminent. He said he chose Monday for the announcement because it is one year to the day until the 2014 election.